This article appeared in the November, 2007 issue of Arthur Robinson's newsletter, Access to Energy: "Solar Power."
Solar-electric energy will always require very large land or roof surface areas in order to produce significant amounts of electricity because solar energy is distributed on the Earth with low intensity per unit area. Still, this technology can become practical -- if the cost of solar electric equipment is substantially diminished. Better means of storing electricity during non-daylight hours would also be helpful.
At current prices, however, solar electric power is of little value except in locations where electrical transmission from ordinary power grids is too costly. This is the reason that, regardless of enormous tax-funded subsidies, solar electric power accounts for only about 0.1% of U.S. electricity. Many affluent people pay too little attention to cost -- especially those who do not engage in physically productive activities. A doubled electric bill may be of only passing interest to an academic or government employee on a comfortable tax-paid salary, but it can make the difference between success and failure for a manufacturing company.
"Solar Energy's Red Queen" by David Schneider, American Scientist 96 (2008) pp 24-25, summarizes the current situation.
At present, just the energy required to manufacture the solar panels themselves precludes their becoming practical. He calls this the "Red Queen" effect. In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, the Red Queen says, "Now here, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."
Summarized by Andy Black, CEO of OnGrid Solar Energy Systems, "We've got this wonderful, clean industry that's actually using coal to power it."
If one is in a high enough tax bracket to take advantage of all of the tax breaks and subsidies, solar-electric power is almost free. The taxpayers -- most of whom are too poor to take advantage of these subsidies -- will buy a very nice solar electric system and install it on your roof. The hypocrisy of those who accept these subsidies and then brag about their "green," anti-human-caused global warming activities is distasteful indeed.
There is some progress. Schneider describes new solar cell technology that is not silicon-based. Instead, it uses organic dyes and titanium dioxide to produce solar-electric cells at significantly lower cost. This and other improvements may help.
A recent visitor told us that solar-electric cells can now be purchased wholesale for about $2 per watt. We have not yet found a supplier at this price, but this improves solar economics a little.
The current cost of home-based solar-electric energy is about 35 cents per delivered kilowatt hour. See reference 126 in "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" by A. B. Robinson, N. E. Robinson, and W. Soon, J. Am. Phys. Surg. 12 (2007) pp. 79-90.
Estimating solar cells as two-thirds of the total cost, the $2 cells would reduce the price of solar-electric power to about 20 cents per kilowatt hour. This compares with 5 cents per kilowatt hour for peak nuclear electric power even with all of the current government impediments. Off-peak nuclear power now sells for as little as 1 cent per kilowatt hour. It is not practical to turn nuclear reactors on and off with demand, and there is no practical way at present to store significant amounts of electricity.
Still, it is absolutely essential to understand that the United States needs lots of new domestic energy production -- now! We cannot wait for futuristic opportunities. The Chinese are not technological Luddites. If solar-electric power were practical now, the Chinese and other Asian countries would not be building 1,000 new coal-fired plants and beginning to develop methane clathrate hydrocarbon energy. Methane clathrates provide essentially limitless hydrocarbons.
World methane clathrate reserves are estimated to be greater, in hydrocarbon energy, than the sum of all world coal, oil, and natural gas reserves combined, and both India and China are beginning to recover them. See "China and India Exploit Icy Energy Reserves" by Gerald Traufetter, Der Spiegel OnLine, December 13, 2007.
Still, ideologically motivated groups continue to distribute propaganda, such as that pointing out that the energy in solar radiation striking the Earth far exceeds that available from hydrocarbon reserves. Ergo, people are said to be foolish to waste all of this solar energy in favor of "polluting" hydrocarbon energy.
We could, with similar aplomb, compute the nuclear energy of the Earth by simply plugging the mass of the Earth into E = mc2. This enormous value far exceeds solar radiation. Therefore, of course, nuclear energy should be used to the exclusion of all else.
Unfortunately, many people are swayed by this sort of propaganda. This illustrates one central point -- the ordinary people of the United States cannot, through their "elected" representatives, intelligently decide how the country's energy should be generated -- any more than they can be relied upon to decide how farmers should grow their crops, how Intel should manufacture computer microprocessors, or how steel companies should manufacture steel. Moreover, under freedom, they have no right to do so.
There are many ways to accomplish each technological goal. Those who are expert in these things must be allowed to compete -- in a free, largely unregulated market -- where those who have the greatest wisdom and good fortune will produce the best results. This competition is driven by profit -- rewards to the most productive.
For two generations, Americans have allowed their politicians -- largely opportunistic lawyers without technological training or experience -- to tax and regulate their energy industries so extensively that the United States has become a very unfavorable business climate in which to generate useful energy. So, along with so many of our other industries, energy production has moved abroad. The more than $400 billion annual price of importing energy can no longer be afforded by Americans. Solar energy that may become practical in the future will not substitute.
Either government gets off of the backs of our energy industries -- especially our hydrocarbon and nuclear energy industries, or else the citizens of the United States will become the bankrupt inhabitants of a low-technology country. Will freedom be restored to these industries? If the current crop of front-runners for the American presidency and the current politicians in control of Congress are considered, the answer to this question is "no!"
Will this degradation in American life be rapid or gradual? No one knows. If gradual, it will probably proceed something like this:
Fuel, electricity, and other prices will continue to rise, and shortages will gradually become severe. At some point in this process, it will be noticed that our poorer citizens are not receiving a "fair" share of the remaining energy, so energy rationing will be instituted. Manufacturing and other industries will continue to move abroad, where energy is plentiful.
Economic and political rationing will result in smaller, more dangerous automobiles and less personal mobility, air conditioning will become rare, and heat during the winter less available -- good for the woolen sweater industry, except that it will be based in China. As conditions worsen, government restrictions on light bulbs will be less important, as activities are carried on more in the daytime and less at night in order to conserve electricity. Internet and television activities will also diminish as a result of lack of energy.
Winter will be an especially difficult time -- even for those who live in Florida, as the remaining energy supplies are shunted to the Northeast to prevent winter deaths from lack of heat.
Under these conditions, will the people understand? Will they allow free enterprise to begin to rebuild the energy industries that can restore prosperity for perhaps their grandchildren and great grandchildren? Will they remove the dead hands of taxation, regulation, and litigation from the backs of productive Americans? Possibly not. Still susceptible to the politics of envy and fear, they may decide instead to blame their remaining energy industries and elect more politicians who teach them to hate Exxon -- the company that provides fuel for their cars.
Is this scenario too pessimistic? Soon, the 30% of our energy being generated abroad will disappear -- purchased by the people of countries who are able to pay with goods and services and real money, instead of unpayable debt and fiat money.
The loss of that 30% will make a much larger difference than is realized because a substantial part of the remaining 70% must be used for essential activities.
The facts are simple. A technological society must produce the energy required to power its technology. If it does not do so, its citizens will need to do without technology -- except for that which they are able to obtain in return for essentially slave labor that they perform for societies that do produce their own energy.
It is important to recognize that energy is needed now -- produced by the most economical means available. Suppose an early American had correctly foreseen the future and therefore told his wife, "I have decided not to plant corn this year. The horses and plow will be obsolete after we have diesel tractors. I'll wait until then. Moreover, I plan to vote for laws banning the use of horses in farming. That will hurry up the development of those tractors." As his family starved to death the next winter, the farmer could feel very good about himself for having stood firm for future technology.
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